1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of web browsers. More particularly, the invention relates to a method of retrieving information relating to an image displayed on a web browser.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When perusing information on an Internet webpage, using a web browser, it is quite common that a viewer is able to call up supplemental information related to the information presented on the webpage by allowing a cursor to hover over a location of interest. The location of interest shall be referred to hereinafter as the “source image.” The cursor is controlled by a pointer device and, as used hereinafter, the term “pointer device” shall include all types of such devices, including, but not limited to: mouse, joy stick, light pen, etc. The supplemental information is hidden in a pick-information element, also called a “hot spot” or an “embedded object,” which is an object that is embedded in the web page near to the source image”. The movement or hovering of a pointer-device over the embedded object triggers the browser to execute one or more events that pop up the supplemental information.
This technique works well for providing point information pertaining to a small individual source image, since it is a relatively simple matter to construct a single embedded object at a specific location. The technique does not work so well, however, when the supplemental information is linked to an image that is irregular in shape and/or stretches over a long distance across the webpage. A geographical map will have many features and points of interest, such as, for example, bodies of water, mountains, etc., and man-made structures, such as roads, buildings, and other structures. In addition to features that are shown on the map, commercial or cultural places, such as stores or theaters, etc., may also represent points of interest. While such points of interest may not be shown on the map itself, it may be desirable to have supplemental information pertaining to them pop up when the cursor hovers over the images where these points of interest are located.
There are several difficulties today with providing the supplemental information in a timely fashion. One difficulty lies in the fact that features on a map are frequently not small square shapes, but may be large and irregularly shaped bodies, such as a lake or a long and meandering road or river, which extends as a slender irregularly shaped element across the entire webpage. For the sake of simplicity, such elements of long and meandering shapes, or of any shape that cannot be easily composed of rectangular elements, are referred to hereinafter as irregular elements. Ideally, information related to such an irregular element should pop up anywhere along the element where the viewer allows the cursor to hover. This is not the case today, for technical reasons. Information is provided today at only one or just a few discrete locations along the irregular element and the viewer has to move the cursor along the element until it lands on the hidden object and the information pops up. Browsers currently handle only a relatively small number of total hidden objects, before performance degradation sets in. In addition, the objects must be constructed as polygonal shapes with regular perimeters, that is, as rectangles, circles, triangles, or other easily defined regular shapes. Most typically, objects are constructed of squares. In order for a hidden object to approximate an irregular element, such as a road or odd-shaped region, many small embedded squares would have to be constructed and precisely placed alongside the irregular element.
Typically, web page designers use Java Script and DHTML (Dynamic HTML) to lay out the objects or hot spots on interactive images and to move images around. Interactive images in DHTML often have actions associated with them. For example, when a viewer clicks on a DHTML image, the viewer's browser pops up a text field that contains supplemental information relating to the image. The conventional browser cannot handle very many hot spots or hover objects. Hot spots eat up memory and just having many hot spots embedded in a page makes the browser inefficient and sluggish. Pointer devices can be moved relatively quickly across a web page, with the result that the mouse travels much faster across objects than the processing capability of the browser. This creates a lag time, and it is a common occurrence that as the mouse traverses objects A, B, C, and D, to land on an object E, for example, the browser gets hung up on trying to retrieve the information to object B, C, or D.
An additional difficulty is that current browser technology does not bring up information from “stacked” objects. Stacked objects are multiple objects that overlap each other, at least partially, in the X and Y directions, and are stacked, that is, stored in layers, in the Z direction, the Z direction being perpendicular to the plane of the computer screen. It is conceivable that one particular element on a map would have several objects associated with it. For example, a train station or a shopping mall may be depicted as a relatively small element, but contain multiple different objects, such as rail lines going through the station, as well as shops, cinemas, coffee shops, restaurants, flower shops, etc. in the station. These multiple objects, the train station, the rail lines, the shops and restaurants are stacked, one on top of the other in the Z direction. Today, the object on the topmost Z layer is presented to the viewer, and the rest ignored. It may be desirable, however, to make the hidden objects or supplemental information associated with any one of the objects visible to the viewer.
What is needed, therefore, is a method of quickly identifying multiple stacked objects in a source image. What is further needed is such a method that readily provides information relating to such stacked objects to a web browser.